Government MPs voted in favour of the highly controversial magisterial inquiry reform bill on Wednesday, a bill that limits the ability for people to request a magisterial inquiry, forcing them to first go to the police.

Had the police done their job properly on cases involving high profile individuals over the past years, perhaps this wouldn't have been such a blow, but the track record means that this move by the government weakens the citizens' ability to take action if the police do not.

The hospitals inquiry, the 17 black and Panama Papers inquiry were requested in the first place because the police were seen to not be acting on these cases. Enacting a law that, if in place at the time, could have meant that they would not have been launched, is wrong and damaging to the rule of law. On the issue of the hospitals, even more so given that the courts had already annulled the hospitals deal in judgements that mentioned fraud and collusion.

The government decided to barge through any logical opposition to the changes made and passed it through. Not only did it ignore calls by civil society for dialogue. Not only did it ignore calls by the Opposition party not to go through with the controversial changes, but it also ignored points raised by a number of social partners, as well as legal experts.

For instance, legal professor Kevin Aquilina said that the magisterial inquiry reform the government had submitted to Parliament is the "fatal torpedoing of the rule of law," and the Malta Chamber of Commerce had said weeks ago that the government's magisterial inquiry reform Bill may have been well-intentioned, however the draft leaves much to be desired.

Protestors gathered outside Parliament on Wednesday in an attempt to convince government MPs not to vote in favour of the bill, carrying three black coffins with the words democracy, rule of law and justice written on them. After the vote was passed, Repubblika President Vikki Ann Cremona said that the NGO will be preparing a constitutional case to try and repeal the reform. Meanwhile, the Nationalist Party has said that it would reverse the bad parts of the bill if elected.

The government's argument that the reform is meant to protect people from justice being abused is instantly countered when seeing that the courts themselves had recently turned down a number of requests for magisterial inquiries, without this new reform being implemented yet.

While the reform does include some good points, such as that victims of crimes or their relatives will also have the new right to request an update on the progress of a magisterial inquiry that concerns them after a lapse of six months, including a few good points to try and dress up the terrible parts of the bill is wrong. The real objective of this bill was not to help victims, but to limit magisterial inquiry requests, that much is clear for all to see. It was a shameful move by the government and all the MPs who backed it.